Part One: Fundamental Facts You Should Know About Worry
Most worrying comes down to either things entirely out of your control or things that are further out than today. You can tackle the first one by merely imagining the worst possible outcome, visualizing what would become of it, accept that, then realize that anything better than the worst is better than what you’ve already accepted. For long-term worries, focus on the immediate task at hand and do it as well as you possibly can, because even if the connection isn’t obvious, doing the best you can on your immediate task will help solve that long term task, either directly (by building a foundation for making it easier) or indirectly (by opening up alternate paths).

Part Two: Basic Techniques In Analyzing Worry
When you’re worried about something, be proactive. Start gathering as many facts as you can about the situation, then use those facts to develop a plan of attack. Once the attack plan is in place, get down to business implementing that plan and just focus on the task at hand. Most worrying is reactive – take it to the problem by being proactive.

It all comes down to four questions: what is the problem? What is the cause of the problem? What are all possible solutions? What is the best solution? Answer these questions in order and you’ll dig down to the root of any worry and attack it head on.

Part Three: How To Break The Worry Habit Before It Breaks You
Another tack to take in battling stress is to find other ways to fill your time. For me, for example, the best solution to fighting stress is to keep busy all the time. If I’m always busy and have an organized system of keeping relevant tasks at hand, stress goes away because I’m constantly keeping up with the things I need to do. One should also let go of the past and focus entirely on the present and future; those are the areas where you can affect things, not the past.

Part Four: Seven Ways To Cultivate A Mental Attitude That Will Bring You Peace and Happiness
In a nutshell, the seven methods are:

Meditation Spend some time filling your mind with thoughts of peace. Find a meditative technique that works for you and practice it.

Don’t worry about enemies Instead of thinking about people you don’t like, spend some time thinking about people that you do like.

Forget about ingratitude If someone else isn’t grateful for your help, don’t worry about it in the least. It’s a reflection on them, not you, so don’t concern yourself with it.

Look for positives in the negative If something bad happens, try to find the positives in it.

Be nice to others Even if you’re unhappy, positive actions and attitudes towards others might make others less unhappy.

Part Five: The Perfect Way To Conquer Worry
Interestingly, it’s prayer, whether you happen to believe in a God or not. The point of prayer isn’t that you necessarily expect someone to answer or that you’re communicating with a higher power (though this is definitely of importance to people of faith), but that you can express what ails you, voice it in some fashion within, and open yourself up to receiving an answer, whether from your own subconscious or from a higher power. If you haven’t prayed, even if you’re an atheist, give it a shot.

Part Six: How To Keep From Worrying About Criticism
Criticism comes in three flavors. If it’s unjustified, just view it as a compliment – it’s coming from a person jealous of your success. If it’s well-stated and mature, be thankful for it, because it’s coming from someone who sincerely wants to help you and may have wisdom to share. This eliminates a lot of criticism; you can fend off the rest by just doing your best and then weathering it when it happens.

Part Seven: Six Ways To Prevent Fatigue and Worry and Keep Your Energy and Spirits High
These six techniques boil down to two basic things: get plenty of rest and eliminate distractions. This chapter is actually a much longer list of tips than just six; the titular six are merely groupings. In fact, one set of the ideas (those to handle workplace issues) sounds an awful lot like a prototype version of GTD.

Part Eight: How to Find the Kind of Work in Which You May Be Happy and Successful
This section was extremely outdated, but the very core of the advice boils down to figuring out yourself first. If the topic of this chapter really interests you, this germ of an idea grows into full bloom in the book What Color Is Your Parachute? (read my detailed review of it).

Part Nine: How to Lessen Your Financial Worries
Here, Carnegie lays down the very basics of personal finance, from the simple “spend less than you earn” statements to the basics of budgeting. The advice is simple and very much geared towards families during the Depression, with such interesting dated tips as “never give life insurance money to a widow in cash.” Much like the previous section, the advice here can be found in a more modern context elsewhere quite easily.

Part Ten: “How I Conquered Worry”
The book concludes with a large assortment of stories from various people, many of whom were well-known contemporaries of Dale Carnegie. I found Jack Dempsey’s essay particularly interesting, mostly because I happen to be a big fan of prizefighting from the early twentieth century, once even going so far as to decorate my dormitory room with posters of Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey. The stories reiterate the advice in several ways and are both culturally interesting and also great for providing examples of how Carnegie’s advice can be implemented in day-to-day life.

Buy or Don’t Buy?
One of the biggest criticisms of Carnegie’s books is that they focus too squarely on the immediate and the mechanical and don’t look often enough at the deeper meaning. For example, with How to Win Friends and Influence People, the book is often criticized for discussing specific mannerisms and presentation tips and conversational tips, but missing out on the bigger issue of how to actually relate to people.

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living is loaded with lots of very specific ideas for conquering stress in the moment, which is quite useful and makes this book worth reading. However, it doesn’t address fixing some of the true root causes of stress: overall lifestyle choices and the like.

In other words, if stress is a constant in your life, you may need to look deeply at the root causes of it. Carnegie’s advice is an excellent balm for your wound, but it won’t heal the wound – you may need to look elsewhere for that type of help. I found that Carnegie’s immediate advice on stress and happiness worked very well when coupled with the long view of advice from books like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People; neither one really addresses it all as a whole, but they compliment each other quite well.

I have been meaning to write a comment for a while now and finally got round to it today.

I just wish to let you know that your website is the first one I check when I get to work and the last one I check before I go to bed. You really do seem to have a passion for writing and it shows in your posts. Thanks in particular for the book reviews.

All the best in your endeavors man. You sure have a wise little head on your shoulders. Ciao!

I’ll add that voicing your concerns (not necessarily out loud) is indeed very beneficial and soothing to the mind. If some people choose to call that praying and choose to believe that there is someone/something listening then good for them. But for me, the benefit is in the action.

This book looks very interesting and informative. It covers a lot and gives some good advice. I have found meditating to be extremly beneficial in taking my mind off things. It’s true, many things we worry about are out of our control, probably the notion that we don’t have control of the situation is a huge part of it. Even just keeping one’s mind busy. I have found cleaning to be a good for this.

The problem I see is when people get stressed out they tend to withdraw and/or turn to alcohol & other drugs to numb the pain. It can be better to keep one’s hands & mind busy to prevent this. However, some become a workaholic, excercize junkie, etc. and can have negative effects as well, especially on family/personal relationsips.

A lot of it has to do with being at peace. Letting go, forgiving, giving things we cant handle to our ‘higher power.’ Harboring feelings of guilt, anger, jealousy, can aggravate things. Also, being able to know one’s limits, admit defeat, ask for help (or walk away) is not a sign of weakness. Society puts much emphasis being tough. We push ourselves too far and worry that it’s not good enough, worry about what others think.

Prayer is good too, even for folks who aren’t
religious. It puts concerns out there. Researchers studide the power of prayer concluded that praying was helpful in a variety of issues(illness, financial troubles, etc). Although they weren’t sure why, prayer was often effective. It didn’t matter who was doing the praying, even when people didn’t know they were being prayed for (or didn’t believe it would help), their situations still improved.

I would like to add that helping others can make us feel better and take our minds off our problems. It can illustrate how lucky we are compared to others too. There have been times when playing therapist or helping someone put things in perspective for me, even though my life sucks, it could be worse.

If we make a habit of helping others with a humble, sincere attitude, it boosts our karma. I truly believe help will be there when we need it and everything will work out in the end if we follow this practice and treat everyone like we would want to be treated. Humbling one’s self also keeps greed and jealousy in check.

Worry is not productive but we can turn it into a valuable lesson. We tend to worry about the situation but don’t process it when it’s over. It can be helpful to identify the negative self talk, use of what-if/worst case scenerios, and ‘psychic’ predictions (My boss is going to fire me! I’m gonna lose my hose, my wife is going to take the kids and leave!).

If anyone worries a lot, has a lot of anxiety, and stress in their lives, I recomend going thru a corse of biofeedback. Many insurance plans cover it and it’s better than conventional therapy. The power of the mind and the breath is amazing. They can teach people to quiet the involuntary responses of stress, pain, anger, fear etc. It enabled me to stop taking anxiety meds (a big savings in itself).

Worry often comes from a lack of effective coping mechanisms which can be taught thru biofeedback. There is also computer software that can be used at home to practice. It can be applied to many areas of your life and be useful for many years.

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